The Best Thing About Schwarzenegger: He Got His Clock Cleaned By Women

Is the future of the labor movement female?  In These Times it just might be--and the best evidence?--the damage that the California Nurses Association has done to Arnold Schwarzenegger after he claimed he was 'kicking their butts.'

Great story by Kari Lydersen in In These Times:

"While the aggressive, vociferous CNA campaign defies stereotypes of women as passive and accommodating, the nurses take pride in their perhaps “traditional” role as caretakers of patients and their community. They emphasize that their commitment to providing quality care for patients is at the heart of the staffing ratios debate, and they see their main battle as being for decent working conditions, affordable housing, healthcare and other basic rights for everyone.

“We spend an enormous amount of time in political education, vis-a-vis the relationship of nurses to the public,” says DeMoro. “You can’t be a patient advocate without being a social advocate, because medicine takes place in a social context. The things that affect your life, your family and your community are jobs, adequate health insurance, pensions, standards of living. It comes down to those issues.”